Imagine!You can play chess with whatever help you want: any
number of computers and engines, any GMs friends, hackers or voodoo magic will
do. You can even order and enjoy greasy salami pizza during the game and do whatever
else pleased you  this isFreestyle Internet Chess
TournamentI am writing about!

Report by WGM Iweta Radziewicz

2nd Freestyle Chess Main Tournament took place thanks to the sponsor PAL GROUP from
United Arab Emirates and Chess Base server during the weekend 19 & 20
March 2006. Almost 150 chess players from around the world had fun and good
chess training, but only eight luckiest participants qualified to the final,
which took place on Internet April 8 & 9. It is worth noticing that prizes
were amazing  much better that in open tournament (!): 1.8000$ 2. 4000$
3.2000$ 4-8 chess software of 1000$value, and that the level
of chess games was also much higher. Who are these luckiest teams?

It is interesting issue how
much computers are improving human play and vice versa.The question - what and when is more
important: human intuition or engine evaluation based mainly on calculation, is
a question every Centaur Player (no matter what chess level he/she
presents)has to answer during a game many times. If you want to see how
difficult and complicated it may be  take a look at comments by GM
Krasenkow (2650 ELO) to the Zor_Champ 
Rajlich game. Are you curios about freestyle games?

It is worth mentioning that like last year Centaurs
took the first two places, but there is also a difference from the Freestyle
2005  this year to the final qualified 3 unattended engines. Is it because a
year difference made it possible to get very fast hardware which was not in the
normal price range a year before, or it was just luck or perhaps it was
because of the engine strength improvement  I mean RYBKA 1.1 release J. Honestly I think it was a combination of these
factors J. Ok! But who
won tournament?

Except for buying great hardware and best engine or
few best as you like, you can improve your chances to win games by choosing or
making an opening book. Still engines are not great in openings  humans can
improve the game level here a lot. It will not be so much fun to play or watch
only engine versus engine games, so Dear Centaurs get ready  the 3rdFreestyle main tournament
according to some unofficial information is coming up in June!Would like to read more about freestyle chess? Here is
a very interesting report written by correspondence GM ARNO NICKELwww.chessbase.com/eventarticle.asp?newsid=2984.